Samenvatting

For Universities, or for similar institutes of higher education, it is increasingly difficult to initialize a Master-programme within The Netherlands. They have to find their way through the maze of a growing number of rules and regulations and quality controls. A side issue that occurs is that these legislations also change from time to time. That makes this topic quite abstract for staff members who work for these organisations. This research has been carried out in order to start simplifying a successful Master-start-up-process within The Netherlands. That is the core of this research. Several related topics have been chosen in order to obtain more insight in this matter. The research starts with a literature review on current knowledge about these topics. The following topics have been addressed during a review of literature: a theoretically-correct process of a Master start-up, governmental criteria & assessment of these standards, Master start-ups abroad (international aspects), HRM aspects, proper internal educational quality arrangements, content of the programme, an optimal way of arranging finances before ‘launching the course’, how to create right connections with the industry and how to keep appropriate differentiation between the chosen type of Master-degree and other co-excising educational degrees and levels. The above mentioned subjects have been discussed in the review, however there were several conclusions that could be made after this exposition of subjects. The most important conclusions are as follows: the governmental laws that apply on master start-ups is widely interpretable and exact figures of these requirements are not clear. There is hardly any literature on how programmes should ensure: contact with the industry, a proper guidance of the start-up process. After reviewing literature, it was not yet possible to answer all research question(s) about starting up a Master-programme within The Netherlands successfully. The main research has the purpose to clarify the topics that could not be found or properly explained within the literature review. The results gave insights on the gap between the reality and the theory of a Master-programme start-up. In this case, with theory is meant: the current literature about this subject. The reality means the current and future interpretations and explanations from experts on this research-topic. In this case, the research has been approached in a qualitative manner of Grounded Theory. The researcher chose to use interviews with experts, observations and memoing (memo’s are also made during observations). Most important for the research is getting to know the exact meaning of current literature that is leaving lots of open spaces (gaps) in knowledge. The researcher was able to ‘fill up’ the gap between theory and reality. More exact formulations of above mentioned topics have been obtained with appropriate interpretations from experts. The end-result of the research was creating a development theory-model for initial Master-programmes. Findings from the research and literature review are compared in the discussion chapter. The most important findings and conclusions, can be summarized as follows: Preferable should an initial master programme be a bottom-up initiative. This means that e.g. lecturers, or representatives from the industry, should come with innovative ideas for a new programme. The ideas should be structured and formed into one concept. This should cover for instance: finances, a guaranteed mix of higher educated (PHD) employees and (Master-degree educated) staff from the industry. This concept also entails the: curriculum, finance specifications, innovations of the programme and quality assurance processes. The planning of project steps has to be made before coming to final agreements with appropriate stakeholders and a ‘doing phase’, that contains applying for governmental approval via organisations such as the NVAO and CDHO.